hanami picnic

Having a proper hanami picnic under the blooming cherry blossoms at full peak with a bounty of Japanese treats
was something I've been dreaming of all month as spring has slowly waken up around here. You know how life goes
though, every time I tried to pin down a day to make it happen there was always something or other to get in the way
and postpone it. Just when I was about to give up on the whole idea, we both had a window open on a sunny friday afternoon
and we seized the opportunity, went shopping at a Japanese market in Chinatown, packed our treats and blankets into my decrepit
vintage picnic backet and we hoofed it over to central park where a lane of stunning kanzan sakura trees were in full bloom.



















Unfortunately although it was a gorgeous warm sunny day and the sun filtering through the blossoms and leaves was
lovely to behold, the conditions were less than ideal for photos- the harsh contrast from the splashes of sun
against the shadows cast by the blooms just registered as blotchy and spotty at best and didn't really convey
how everything looked and felt to the eye. I eventually gave up on taking the kind of photos I had been imagining
and idealizing in my mind leading up to the picnic, and we made do with a few iPhone and lo-fi pics. better than nothing







I thought I might explain some of the treats for anyone who's interested- The four balls on a stick I'm holding are called
dango: they are mochi balls (steamed rice flour and water) smothered in a delicious sweet soy/ corn syrup like sauce. Definitely
in my top three most favorite Japanese treats. You can find them at any festival, sometimes roasted. The cute peach-looking things
are little steamed buns with sweet red bean filling. They can be referred to as baos or anman, and are actually chinese. The round
flat things that look like oatmeal cookies are snow sembei, a rice cracker drizzled with a sweet/salty frosting. Those fat yellow
balls are mochi daifuku: chestnut flavored mochi stuffed with a layer of chestnut/white bean paste and cream. The yan-yan is also
chinese and is kinda like a dunkaroo, but way more entertaining because of the weird messages written on each cracker stick. The pikachu
and triangle are onigiri: rice stuffed with tuna and wrapped in seaweed. Does anyone have any questions about anything else?













Happy Spring!! (to those of us in the northern hemisphere)